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Health-care reform is generally considered the signature accomplishment of President Obama’s first term. Certainly, it is representative of the president’s approach to government: a costly new entitlement funded by higher taxes and more debt. It will result in higher insurance premiums, fewer jobs, and sets the stage for the possible future rationing of care.

The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that ObamaCare will cost more than $1.76 trillion by 2022. And that may actually underestimate the real cost. Other estimates suggest that ObamaCare could end up costing as much as $2.7 trillion over the next 10 years and add as much as $823 billion to our growing national debt.

Moreover, at a time of slow economic growth and high unemployment, ObamaCare imposes more than $569 billion in new or increased taxes, the vast majority of which will fall on businesses. Many of those taxes, especially those on hospitals, insurers and medical-device manufacturers, will ultimately be passed along to consumers through higher health-care costs. But other taxes, in particular new taxes on investment income, are likely to reduce economic and job growth.

And this does not even begin to account for the law’s mandate that employers must provide workers with insurance. While some businesses may respond to the law’s employer mandate by choosing to pay the penalty and dumping their workers into public programs, many others will be forced to offset increased costs by reducing wages, benefits, or employment.

Individuals will also end up paying more. Already, ObamaCare has increased insurance premiums by 2%-4%. And the government’s own actuaries project that, in the future, premiums will rise by 7.9% per year, roughly twice as fast as they would have without ObamaCare.

Most troubling of all, ObamaCare is likely to reduce the quality of health care for millions of Americans. It will make it more difficult to see the doctor of your choice, and the government’s actuaries suggest that it could force many hospitals to close.

If this is the president’s signature achievement, it makes for a pretty devastating indictment of Obama’s first term.